Tussen takk

On our way to Mo i Rana we stopped in Trondheim on Friday and flew to Mo on Saturday.  While in Trondheim we attended a "welcome back" activity with the young adults in the branch.  These are the kids we will be working with beginning next week.  This pic shows a bunch of missionaries (there are 6 in Trondheim), investigators, and young adults preparing dinner.

In T-heim, making ice cream by shaking it in a baggie.  It works!  If you want details how it's made, ask Dana.  A fun activity and it tastes great.

Sister Berggren eating the ice cream.

Sister Stevens with two of our awesome young adults.  Both these young ladies were baptized last year.

Harald (on left), Elder Gardner, and Adrian.  Harald is the ward clerk and usually attends YA activities, a really neat guy.  Elder Gardner is one of 5 missionaries out of 50 who comes from Springville, Utah, and Adrian returned a couple of months ago from a mission in Salt Lake South.  We also have video of the activity in Trondheim but too much memory.  We'll figure it out and send it later.

Still at Trondheim.  Elder Whitehead, one of our awesome young adults, and two investigators. 

Mo i Rana

Dana's hat and scarf, made by American friend, Becky Carleson in Sandvika area.

Dinner at Stein and Gullaug Pedersen's house in first of Jan, 11.  Seated are the Burton's (Oslo Young Adult Center couple, President Johansen (his wife was in Salt Lake at wedding of their son), and Pedersen's.

Cutting Snorre's hair at Oslo YA center.  Snorre is one of the Y Adults who plans on a mission next summer.

Elder Carr from Murray, Utah.  He'd become one of our "sons" as an AP in the office.  He was being transferred to open the city of Tromso (with a line through the o) located way above the Arctic Circle.

 Mo i Rana.  We are moving to the city of Trondheim on February 8th and will visit Mo once a month when we get there.  Mo is right on the Arctic Circle and their airport is named Arctic Circle International Airport.  We flew there and met our good friends and the couple we will be replacing in Trondheim, the Sorensen's, who will be returning home to the Tri Cities area in Washington.  They had traveled the 8 hours by train from Trondheim.

Mo i Rana Part 2

The wharf at Mo i Rana

Sculpture of women in the fjord at Mo i Rana; waiting for her sailer to return from sea.  Mo is a coastal town on the Norwegian Sea/Arctic Ocean.

We ate dinner with our friends, the Sorensen's Saturday night in Mo i Rana.

We ordered fish on a board, which was salmon cooked on wood, with veggies and surrounded by mashed potatoes.

 Midday in Mo i Rana, middle of January.  There are clouds but even without there would be no sun.  This far north with mountains, they don't see the sun at all in December and January.

Mo i Rana Part 3

Mo i Rana Branch.  3 very small rooms.  Branch includes the Branch President, his wife, 3 young kids, a former branch president, and 2 women.  Cozy.  We had sacrament meeting where we and the Sorensen's spoke (Dana and Norm in English, with Norwegian testimonies).  

Mo i Rana primary (Branch President's 3 kids).

Mo snow

Mo i Rana airport

Sunrise from a prop plane on our way to Mo.  Dana got pretty excited.  We flew out of Mo on Sunday night on another small prop plane during a blizzard.  Norm still has scars in his thigh from Dana's finger nails  It was a topsy turvy, wavy flight.  Everything turned out fine.  We first flew to a city called Bodø, pronounced Boo-duh, which is even further north.  We then flew on a regular plane to Oslo, probably about a 1000 mile trip. 

Oslo

Back in the office, a couple in the office next door was having a knock-out, drag down argument.  Elders Crandall and Dearden got close to the wall, trying to figure out what it was about.

Norm taking his power nap in Dana's office.

This week (last week of January) the mission had Elder and Sister Teixiera visit.  Elder Teixiera (pronounced Too share u) is in the 1st Quorum of Seventy and is a member of the Europe Area Presidency.  This photo was taken on Wednesday in the Oslo Young Adult Center where he spoke with zone and district leaders leaders in the afternoon and young adults in the evening.  This was dinner before the YA meeting.  Zone Conference for the Oslo area was held the following day, Thursday.  Zone and district leaders had been flown in from all over Norway on Wednesday for the 3 hour meeting and half of them flew home right after, only to fly again the following day to the city of Stavanger where Elder Teixiera conducted another zone Conference on Friday.  The distances and flights required to cover this long country are gynormous.  Meetings with the Teixiera's were special moments, never to be forgotten.

Downtown Oslo sunset with cool-looking building in the foreground.

Sisters Mergens and Brown with someone they baptized.